Then and Now - Gotcha Day

Gotcha Day 2006

Gotcha Day 2007

Gotcha Day 2008

Gotcha Day 2009

Gotcha Day 2010

Gotcha Day 2011

We had a fun day celebrating Ami yesterday.  Of course, she enjoyed the extra attention we had to offer, too.  After church she chose to eat lunch at Panera.  Cinnamon rolls are apparently appetizing to her at anytime of day.  We are blessed to have this cheerful, spunky little girl in our family!

Five Years Ago......

.....this moment forever changed our family:

We received our fourth blessing and treasure in a very smoky and stuffy room on the 26th floor of an office building in Nanchang, China.  I can still clearly remember the emotions, the intensity, the smells, the first sight of our daughter sitting on her nanny's lap in the corner, the whirlwind as we and the five other families in our travel group received our long awaited children into our arms.  Unspeakable joy!

A mommy to call her own:

 

A daddy to call her own:

Sisters and a brother to call her own:

(A week later at the airport)

No longer an orphan, but a very much loved treasure!

Happy Gotcha Day, Ami Jo-Li!  We love you more than words can express.  We are so blessed to have you in our lives.  God knew that we needed each other, He put together the perfect match!  

And Happy Gotcha Day to five other precious treasures....Lianna and Lyndsey, Emma Joy, Jaden, our sweet niece Elle, and Abby.  You are a beautiful bunch of girls.

A Walk in the Woods

Yesterday was a perfect day for a walk in the woods at Wolfe Park.  The kids took their Nature Journals to sketch the beautiful leaves and the quiet creek.  It's such a privilege to be able to take some time out in the middle of the day to go crunching through the leaves. 

Fun at Home

Just some more random photos of ordinary happenings around our house....

With both Elijah and Ami becoming better readers, they are able to participate more in our family devotion time in the evenings as we take turns reading from the Bible together.  You can tell they are both proud to be reading aloud just like everyone else. 

Johanna and Ami love to dance around to music.  Yesterday they had pushed back all the living room furniture, dressed alike (hair and all), and were dancing their hearts out to a patriotic CD, with songs such as I'm Proud to be an American.  Lots of free entertainment at our house!

My ingenious son, working on getting a splinter out of his finger.  Wish I had thought of the head lamp in times past!

Ami has been stuck on unicorns lately.  You will frequently find her around the house with a "horn" taped to her forehead.

Mom's Weekend Away

This last weekend I got to get away on my semi-annual scrapbooking/crafting weekend.  I've done this for a few years now and thoroughly enjoy the relaxing time I have with girlfriends.  We meet at a rustic camp and usually have around twenty moms.  We start Friday morning and end Sunday evening.  It's a great time of relaxing, laughing, chatting, eating, and getting some scrapbooking or crafting done.  Of course, since it's at a camp there always seem to be a few pranks, too.  (Of course, not I!  Moi?)  There is no schedule at all and we usually have one or two people in charge of each meal, that way you don't even have to worry about cooking and cleaning much. 

Funny, this picture looks like we're all leaning, it's was taken on a hill.  Thanks for the great weekend ladies!

Osaka Sukiyanen!

Basically that means "I Love Osaka", in the Osaka dialect.  I'm "from" Osaka, and that's where we went tonight.  :)  We visited one of our local Japanese restaurants so that our three children who are studying Japanese could have some more cultural experience.  It's been quite a while since our last visit because it's a bit on the expensive side for a family of seven, so tonight was a special treat.

Michaela and Chris even give the customary Japanese pose!

Oh it was so yummy!!  I wanted to order everything on the menu.  I don't realize how much I miss Japan until I walk into a place like this.  The smells, the tastes, the sounds, the sights.  It's all nostalgic for me.  It's easy to slip into conversation with the Japanese waitress and want to keep chatting forever just to use my rusty Japanese.  It's a part of me, a part of me that doesn't get to come out all that often.

My Japanese "bucket" is definitely not full, so I'm going to have to charm Chris into going to Missouri's Osaka once in a while on our weekly lunch dates.  I need that little bit of home, it's good for my soul!

Even a miniature coi pond....ahhh, a little piece of Japan in the Midwest.

Shoelaces

It hit me the other day that Ami had never learned how to tie her shoes.  That's because she didn't own any shoes with shoelaces!  She'd been wearing flip flops or crocs all summer, and before that she only had Velcro tennis shoes.  She was in need of bigger tennis shoes so we picked some out with laces.  After only a couple of demonstrations she had it down pat, even nice and tight!  I couldn't believe how easily she learned it.  I well remember a few tears and many trials and error with the other three that I taught to tie their shoes.  I guess all that braiding she's been doing for the last three years has made her pretty adept at using her fine motor skills.
 

I love the determination on her face.  She did not want any help!

Yin and Yang

Awww, even the kittens contribute to the Chinese heritage of our family.  :)

Mizzou Homecoming

No, we're not particularly football fans, or necessarily Mizzou fans either, but it's kind of hard to live in our town and not become fans!  Anyway, we enjoyed going to the Homecoming parade on Saturday.  It was an hour and a half long and it was fun to see the floats and college kids having a great time.  Oh, those crazy college kids....seems so long ago for us!

The kids learned the art of waving to attract attention in order to have their bags filled with goodies.  :)

Ami came home with lots of beads, lots of beads.

 

Bags of candy were collected, oh the loot!  One orthodontist group was handing out toothbrushes, so that helped balance it some.  Ha!  Poor Michaela was at the high school all morning taking the PSAT, but her siblings were nice enough to share with her.

Swimming and Pizza

As mentioned earlier, Ami got to choose an outing for our family as a reward for finishing her reading lesson book.  She chose to go swimming and eat pizza, so Friday night we celebrated her accomplishments again. 

Apparently, early Friday evenings aren't a popular time at the rec center so we had most of the place to ourselves.  The kids all had fun and Ami enjoyed playing mermaid.

 

After the kids were good and hungry we headed to a pizza buffet where Ami even got a specially ordered cheese-free pizza.  Thanks for the fun evening, Ami!

Random Photos

Oh yes, Chris was one of those guys that was up in the middle of the night last week to pre-order the latest iPhone.  I'm pretty happy about it too, as I now have his "old" iPhone.  :)  

Ami was a bit slow going one morning and parked herself on top of the coffee table.

Too cute!  I love little writers.

Another sewing project completed, tote bags.

Our Reader

Yesterday was a big day for Ami.  She completed her 100 Easy Lessons!  We started this book at the beginning of the year, but we took our time and took about three months off during the summer.  She really started to pick up steam in the last three weeks and has become quite the natural reader. 

You can see her sticker chart that has received one sticker for each lesson completed.  We love this book and have had great success using it for each of our five children now.   By the time the book is finished the child is typically at a solid 2nd grade reading level. 

Ami was excited to call Daddy at work to share the news!  Now, by tradition, we will have a family party to celebrate.  She has chosen to go to the local rec center for a swimming party, so more on that later.  We are proud of you Ami! 

Another Birthday

Last night we celebrated Scott's birthday.  He's our "third son", our house guest that's been with us for a couple of months now.  We know it's got to be tough to be away from family for that long, and we're praying that his wife and kids will be able to move up to Missouri soon.  They are now under contract for a house to buy, so they would appreciate prayer that their house in Georgia sells quickly. 

Happy Birthday, Scott!  May God bless you and your family in the coming year as you begin a new chapter in your lives together in Missouri.